The Confederate Cause And Its Defenders. An Address Delivered By Judge George L. Christian

Before the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans at the Annual
Meeting held at Culpeper C. H., Va., October 4th, 1898, and published by Special Request
of the Grand Camp.

Great wars have been as landmarks in
the progress of nations, measuring-points of growth or decay. As crucibles they test the
characters of peoples. Whether or not there is fibre to bear the crush of battle, and the
strain of long contest:--not only in this determined; but also another matter, of yet more
serious import, and of deeper interest to the student of history and to a questioning
posterity. The grave investigator of to-day, searches the past to know whether man is of
such character, whether the causes for which he has fought are such, that the future is
always to be dark with "wars and rumors of war" He asks what men have regarded
as sufficient causes of war? He does not enquire whether "the flying Mede" at
Marathon, or the Greek with "his pursuing spear," are types of their nations: he
rather seeks to know how the apparently unimportant action of an insignificant city,
provoked the great Persian invasion. His question is, not whether Athens or Sparta bred
the better soldier, but he searches the records to find out the causes of the
Peloponnesian war.
He does not consider whether Vercingetorix,
standing a captive in the presence of Caesar, was, after all, the nobler leader; nor
whether Attila at Chalons was a greater general than Aetius, nor why the sword of Brennus
turned the scale on that fateful day at Rome. He is more concerned to know why the Roman
legions marched so far, and why the world threw off the imperial yoke. The causes of wars
test yet more deeply than conduct in the field, the characters of peoples, indicate yet
more surely what hopes of peace or fears of war lie in the future, to which we are
advancing.
The foregoing considerations press on no people
on earth more heavily than on those of the Southern States of this country. The question
of the justice of the cause for which our Southern men fought and our Southern women
suffered, in the great war which convulsed this country from '61 to '65, will always
interest the philosophical historian, who will seek to know the motive that prompted the
tremendous efforts of those four years, and the character of the men who fought so hard.
It must command the attention of Confederate soldiers and their descendants for all time
to come.
During that contest, and for many years after
its close, there was no doubt as to this question in all our Southern land, and this is
the case with nearly all our mature and thinking people to-day. I fear, however, that some
of our children, misled by the false teachings of certain histories used in some of our
schools, may have some misgivings on this all-important subject.
As Carthage had no historian, the Roman
accounts of the famous Punic wars had to be accepted. All the blame was, as a matter of
course, thrown on Carthage, and thus "Punica Fides" became a sneering by-word to
all posterity. And so it has been, until recently, with the South. For many years after
the war, our people were so poor, and so busily engaged in" keeping the wolf from
their doors," that they lost sight of everything else. The shrewd, calculating, and
wealthy Northerners, on the other hand, realized the importance of trying to impress the
rising generation with the justice of their cause; and to that end they soon flooded our
schools with histories, containing their version of the contest, and in many of these
"all the blame" (as in the case of Carthage), is laid on the South.
In view of these facts, I have thought it not
only not improper, but perhaps, a sacred duty, to call attention to some things which have
impressed me very much, and some which so far as I know, have not heretofore been brought
to the attention of our Southern people.
I shall not, in this address, discuss the
Confederate Cause from the standpoint of a Southerner at all. Indeed, this has been done
so thoroughly and ably by President Davis, Mr. Stephens, Dr. Bledsoe, and others, as to
leave but little, if anything to be said from that point of view. I propose to set in
order certain facts which will show: (1) What the people of the North said and did
during the war to establish the justice of our Cause, and what they have said and
done to the same end since its close; and (2) What distinguished foreigners have said
about that cause, and the way the war was conducted on both sides. It seems to me that an
answer to these enquiries is worthy of the gravest consideration, and ought to make its
impression on any reflecting and unprejudiced mind.
I am profoundly thankful that in these latter
days, our own people have become aroused to the importance of presenting the truth of this
great struggle, and that the result has been to produce some very good histories by
Southern authors, giving the facts as to the causes which led to the war, and those as to
its conduct by both parties. For these indispensable books, we are indebted almost solely
to the influence of the Confederate Camps and kindred organizations which have sprung up
all over the South.
Passing over the history up to the year 1864,
we find the people of the North were then greatly agitated on the question of the
propriety of the war, its further prosecution and the manner in which it was being
conducted by the administration then in power. The opposition to the war and Lincoln's
administration was led by Vallandingham, of Ohio, with such bo1dness and ability as to
cause his arrest and temporary imprisonment. In the Presidential contest of that year,
Lincoln and Johnson were the candidates of the Republican, or war party, and McClellan and
Pendleton were those of the Democratic, or peace party. The convention which nominated
McClellan and Pendleton was one of the most representative bodies that ever assembled in
this country. It met in the city of Chicago on the 29th of August, 1864, with Governor
Horatio Seymour, of New York, as its chairman.
An idea of the temper of the convention may be
gathered from an extract from one of the speeches delivered in it by Rev. C. Chauncey
Burr, of New Jersey, which is as follows:
"We had no right to burn their
wheat-fields, steal their pianos, spoons or jewelry. Mr. Lincoln had stolen a good many
thousand negroes, but for every negro he had thus stolen, he had stolen ten thousand
spoons. It had been said that, if the South would lay down their arms, they would be
received back into the Union. The South could not honorably lay down her arms, for she was
fighting for her honor."
Mr. Horace Greeley says that Governor Seymour,
on assuming the chair, made an address showing the bitterest opposition to the war;
"but his polished sentences seemed tame and moderate by comparison with the fiery
utterances volunteered from hotel balconies, street corners, and wherever space could be
found for the gathering of an impromptu audience; while the wildest, most
intemperate utterances of virtual treason--those which would have caused Lee's army, had
it been present, to forget its hunger and rags in an ecstacy of approval--were sure to
evoke the longest and loudest plaudits."
This convention adopted a platform containing
these, among other, remarkable declarations:
"That after four years of failure to
restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of a military
necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution has been
disregarded in every part. Justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that
immediate efforts be made for the cessation of hostilities, with the ultimate
convention of all the States, that these may be restored on the basis of a federal
union of all the States, that the direct interference of the military authorities in
the recent elections was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and the repetition of
such acts will be held as revolutionary, and resisted; that the aim and object of the
Democratic party is to preserve the federal union and the rights of the States
unimpaired, and that they consider the administrative usurpation of extraordinary
and dangerous powers, not granted by the Constitution, as calculated to
prevent a restoration of the Union; that the shameful disregard of the
administration in its duty to our fellow-citizens--prisoners of war--deserves
the severest reprobation," &c., &c.
It will thus be seen that this platform charged
the party in power with the very offences which the people of the South complained of and
which caused the Southern States to secede. It charged that the "Constitution had
been disregarded in every part"; it declared that "justice, humanity, liberty,
and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of
hostilities "; it charged the administration with the "usurpation of
extraordinary and dangerous powers, not granted by the Constitution "; it charged it
with direct interference in the elections, and with a shameful disregard of its duty to
prisoners of war. The platform claimed that the object of the party adopting it was to
preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.
In a word, the grievances here set forth were
those of which the South was then complaining, and the principles sought to be maintained
those for which the South was contending. And in addition to these, the people of the
South were then exercising the God-given right and duty of defending their homes and
firesides against an invasion as ruthless as any that ever marked the track of so-called
civilized warfare.
Mr. John Sherman tells us in his
"Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate, and Cabinet," that prior to
the adoption of this platform "there was apparent languor and indifference among
people of the North as to who should be president, but after its adoption, there could be
no doubt as to the trend of popular opinion." Governor Seward said in a speech
delivered a few days after the adoption of that platform: "The issue is thus squarely
made: McClellan and disunion, or Lincoln and union."
So that the issue thus made by the people of
the North among themselves was really whether the war then being waged by them against the
South was right or wrong; and on that issue, thus clearly presented, out of four millions
of voters who went to the polls nearly one-half said, in effect, that the war was wrong,
and that the principles for which the South was contending--the "rights of the States
unimpaired "--were right, and that their overthrow was to be resisted by all
patriotic Americans. Lincoln received 2,216,067 votes, whilst McClellan received 1,808,725
votes; the latter receiving very nearly as many votes in the Northern States alone as
Lincoln had received in the whole country when he was elected in 1860, his vote at that
time being only 1,866,352.
I construe this as a condemnation of their
cause by nearly one-half the people of the North, "out of their own
mouths." It will be remembered that in this election the soldiers in the field
voted, and it is to be presumed, of course, voted in support of the cause for Which they
were then fighting.--which fact alone would doubtless account for a very large part of the
votes cast for Mr. Lincoln. In this election, too, there was again the most shameless
interference by the military to carry the election for Mr. Lincoln. When we consider these
facts, I think the result was truly remarkable, and something for the Northern people to
think of now, when many of them so flippantly taunt the Southern people with having been
"rebels" and "traitors." Let them ask themselves, did not the South
have a just cause, and did not nearly one-half the Northern people so pronounce at the
time?
As a sample of the interference by the military
authorities in that election, General B. F. Butler tells us in his book how he was sent by
Mr. Stanton to New York with a military force to control that city and State for Mr.
Lincoln. He says he stationed his troops conveniently near to every voting place in New
York city, and that "he took care that the Southerners should understand that means
would be taken for their identification, and that whoever of them should vote would be
dealt with in such a manner as to make them uncomfortable"; and "the result
was," he says, that "substantially no Southerners voted at the polls on election
day."
I think these figures and these facts
demonstrate that if this election had been a fair one, without the interference of the
military, a majority of the voters of the North would have said by their votes that the
war then being waged against the South was wrong, and would therefore have
stopped it of their own accord, because they were convinced it was wrong, and
contrary to "justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare."
It is most interesting to notice the vote in
some of the great States of the North in this contest on the issue thus presented.
Notwithstanding the interference by the military, as above stated by General Butler, the
vote in New York was 368,726 for Lincoln and 361,986 for McClellan, or a little over 6,000
majority for Lincoln and his cause. Can any one doubt what the result would have been but
for what General Butler says he and his troops did? In Pennsylvania the vote was 296,389
for Lincoln, and 276,308 for McClellan. That in Ohio was 265,154 for Lincoln, and 205,568
for McClellan. That in Indiana was 150,422 for Lincoln, and 130,233 for McClellan. That in
Illinois was 189,487 for Lincoln, and 158,349 for McClellan. That in Wisconsin was 79,564
for Lincoln, and 63,875 for McClellan. In New Hampshire it was 36,595 for Lincoln, and
33,034 for McClellan. In Connecticut it was 44,693 for Lincoln, and 42,288 for McClellan;
and whilst McClellan got the electoral votes of only New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, it
is shown by the large vote he polled in all the States that the feeling of the people of
the North against their cause was not confined to any State or locality, but pervaded the
whole country; nearly every State, except perhaps Massachusetts, Vermont, Kansas, Maine
and West Virginia, endorsing the war policy of the Republicans by smaller majorities than
they have since given to the same party on purely economic issues. And just think of it,
my comrades, that by a change of 209,000 in a vote of more than four millions, a majority
of the people of the North would have voted that their cause was wrong, and that
ours was consequently right.
The virulence with which McClellan's campaign
was conducted cannot be better illustrated than by incorporating here a notice of a
political meeting to be held during that canvass. This notice recently appeared in a
number of The Grand Army Record, and is as follows:

"DEMOCRATS ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH! Grand Rally at Bushnell, Friday, November 4th, 1864.

Hon. L. W. Ross, Major
S. P. Cummings, T. E. Morgan, Joseph C. Thompson will address the people on the above
occasion, and disclose to them the whole truth of the matter.

WHITE MEN OF McDONOUGH,

Who prize the Constitution of our Fathers; who love the Union formed by their
wisdom and compromise; Brave men who hate the Rebellion of Abraham Lincoln, and are determined to destroy it;
Noble women who do not want their husbands and sons dragged to the Valley of Death by
a remorseless tyrant;
Rally out to this meeting in your strength and numbers.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE."

Mr. Greeley, in his American
Conflict, says:
"It is highly probable that had a popular
election been held at any time during the year following the 4th of July, 1862, on the
question of continuing the war, or arresting it on the best attainable terms, a majority
would have voted for peace; while it is highly probable that a still larger majority would
have voted against emancipation."
The same writer shows, too, not only how the
successes or failures of the Northern armies served as the financial gauge which marked
the price of their gold from time to time, but that these same successes or failures told
in the elections the measure of the devotion of the Northern people to their cause.
Not so with the people of the South, who, in
the darkest period of the war, February, 1865, and with a unanimity never surpassed,
resolved that their cause was the "holiest of all causes," and declared their
resolution "to spare neither their blood nor their treasure in its maintenance and
support." And even now, a third of a century after that cause went down in defeat,
but not in dishonor, its memories, though shrouded in sadness, are still a sacred and
living factor in their lives and being.
Just at this point I desire to consider what
was said of our cause, especially of the "right of secession," and of the
conduct of the war on both sides, by a distinguished English nobleman who, it must be
presumed, wrote from an unprejudiced standpoint.
In a work called The Confederate Secession,
written by the Marquis of Lothian, and published in 1864 in Edinburgh and London,
that writer, after reciting and discussing with remarkable accuracy and ability the
grievances of the Southern States, and the cause which led to their secession from the
Union, uses this language:
"I believe that the right of secession is
so clear that if the South had wished to do so, for no better reason than that it could
not bear to be beaten in an election, like a sulky school-boy out of temper at not winning
a game, and had submitted the question of its right to withdraw from the Union to the
decision of any court of law in Europe, she would have carried her point."
He then draws the following vivid contrast
between the way war was conducted by the two parties. He says:
"Let us however suppose the Southern
Secession to have been altogether illegal and uncalled for, or rather let us turn away our
eyes from the question altogether, and suppose that the causes of the struggle are veiled
in obscurity. Can we find anything in the circumstances of the war itself which may induce
us to take one side rather than the other? Those circumstances have been very remarkable.
This contest has been signalized by the exhibition of some of the best and some of the
worst qualities that war has ever brought out. It has produced a recklessness of human
life; a contempt of principles, a disregard of engagements; a wasteful expenditure almost
unprecedented; a widely extended corruption among the classes who have any connection with
the government or the war; an enormous debt, so enormous as to point to almost certain
repudiation; the headlong adoption of the most lawless measures; the public faith
scandalously violated both towards friends and enemies; the liberty of the citizen at the
mercy of arbitrary power; the liberty of the press abolished: the suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act; illegal imprisonments; midnight arrests; punishments inflicted without
trial; the courts of law controlled by satellites of government; elections carried on
under military supervision; a ruffianism both of word and action eating deep into the
country; contractors and stock jobbers suddenly amassing enormous fortunes out of the
public misery, and ostentatiously parading their ill-gotten wealth in the most vulgar
display of luxury; the most brutal inhumanity in the conduct of the war itself; outrages
upon the defenceless, upon women, children and prisoners; plunder, rapine, devastation,
murder,--all the old horrors of barbarous warfare, which Europe is beginning to be ashamed
of, and new refinements of cruelty thereto added, by way of illustrating the advance of
knowledge. It has also produced qualities and phenomena the opposite of these. Ardour and
devotedness of patriotism which might, alone be enough to make us proud of the century to
which we belong; a unanimity such as has probably never been witnessed before; a wisdom in
legislation; a stainless good faith under extremely difficult circumstances; a clear
appreciation of danger, coupled with a determination to face it to the uttermost; a
resolute abnegation of power in favor of leaders in whom those who selected them could
trust; with an equally resolute determination to reserve the liberty of criticism, and not
to allow those trusted leaders to go one inch beyond their legal powers: a heroism in the
field and behind the defences of besieged cities, which can match anything that history
has to show; a wonderful helpfulness in supplying needs and creating fresh resources; a
chivalrous and romantic daring, which recalls the middle ages: a most scrupulous regard
for the rights of hostile property; a tender consideration for the vanquished and the
weak; a determination not to be provoked into retaliation by the most brutal injuries,
which makes one wonder, recollecting what those injuries have been, whether in their
place, one would have done as they have done. * * * And the remarkable circumstance is * *
* that all the good qualities have been on the one side, and all the bad ones on the
other."
In other words, he says that all the bad
qualities were on the side of the North, and all the good on that of the South. He then
says of the South:
"I am not going a hair's-breadth beyond
what I soberly and sincerely believe, in saying that the Confederates have in almost every
respect, surpassed anything that has ever been known.
"The most splendid instance of a nation's
defence of its liberties that the world has seen before the present day, was perhaps (I am
not sure, but I think so), that of Sicily at the end of the thirteenth century: and the
Confederates stand much above the Sicilians."
He then goes on to enumerate the splendid
instances of sacrifice and devotion of the people, especially of the women of the South,
and of the valor and heroism of the soldiers in the field, but to recount these, would
consume more space than would be profitable in this discussion.
That this writer was not singular in his
opinions, in regard to our struggle, is manifest from what Mr. Justin McCarthy tells us in
the second volume of his "History of our own Times." McCarthy was evidently an
ardent sympathizer with the North, and yet he says that in England "the vast majority
of what are called the governing classes, were on the side of the South;" that
"by far the greater number of the aristocracy of the official world, of Members of
Parliament, of Military and Naval men were for the South;" that "London Club
life was virtually Southern;" and that "the most powerful papers in London, and
the most popular papers as well, were open partisans of the Southern Confederation."
Lord Russell said the contest was one "in
which the North was striving for empire, and the South for independence."
Mr. Gladstone said, our President, Mr. Davis,
"had made an army, had made a navy, and had made a nation."
And it is as certain as anything that did not
happen can be, that but for the fall of Vicksburg, and our failure to succeed at
Gettysburg in July, 1863 (both of which disasters came on us at the same time), Mr.
Roebuck's motion in Parliament for recognition by England, which the Emperor Napoleon also
was working hard to bring about, would have been carried, and the Confederacy would then
have been recognized by both England and France. This recognition would have raised the
blockade, and this was all the South needed to insure its success. For as a distinguished
Northern writer, from whom I shall presently quote, said, "without their navy to
blockade our ports, they never could have conquered us."
Mr. Percy Greg, the justly famous English
historian, says:
"If the Colonies were entitled to judge of
their own cause, much more were the Southern States. Their rights--rights not implied,
assumed, or traditional, like those of the Colonies, but expressly defined and solemnly
guaranteed by law--had been flagrantly violated; the compact which alone bound them, had
beyond question, been systematically broken for more than forty years by the States which
appealed to it."
After showing the perfect regularity and
legality of the Secession movement, he then says: "It was in defence of this that the
people of the South sprang to arms 'to defend their homes and families, their property and
their rights, the honor and independence of their States to the last, against five fold
numbers and resources a hundred fold greater than theirs.'"
He says of the cause of the North:
"The cause seems to me as bad as it well
could be; the determination of a mere numerical majority to enforce a bond, which they
themselves had flagrantly violated, to impose their own mere arbitrary will, their idea of
national greatness, upon a distinct, independent, determined and almost unanimous
people."
And he then says, as Lord Russell did:
"The North fought for empire which was not
and never had been hers; the South for an independence she had won by the sword, and had
enjoyed in law and fact ever since the recognition of the thirteen 'sovereign and
independent States,' if not since the foundation of Virginia. Slavery was but the
occasion of the rupture, in no sense the object of the war." Let me add a
statement which will be confirmed by every veteran before me,--noman ever
saw a Virginia soldier who was fighting for slavery.
This writer then speaks Of the conduct of the
Northern people as "unjust, aggressive, contemptuous of law and right," and as
presenting a striking contrast to the "boundless devotion, uncalculating sacrifice,
magnificent heroism and unrivalled endurance of the Southern people."
But I must pass on to what a distinguished
Northern writer has to say of the people of the South, and their cause, twenty-one years
after the close of the war. The writer is Benjamin J. Williams, Esq., of Lowell,
Massachusetts, and the occasion which brought forth his paper (addressed to the Lowell
Sun) was the demonstration to President Davis when he went to assist in the dedication of
a Confederate monument at Montgomery, Ala. He says of Mr. Davis:
"Everywhere he receives from the people
the most overwhelming manifestation of heartfelt affection, devotion and reverence,
exceeding even any of which he was the recipient in the time of his power; such
manifestations as no existing ruler in the world can obtain from his people, and such as
probably were never given before to a public man, old, out of office, with no favors to
dispense, and disfranchised. Such homage is significant; it is startling. It is given, as
Mr. Davis himself has recognized, not to him alone, but to the cause whose chief
representative he is, and it is useless to attempt to deny, disguise or evade the
conclusion, that there must be something great and noble and true in him and in the cause
to evoke this homage."
This writer then goes on to review Mr. Davis's
career, both before and during the war, pays a splendid tribute to his character as a man,
and his genius and ability as a soldier and statesman; says even Henry Wilson, of
Massachusetts, referred to him in a speech made during the war, as the "clear-headed,
practical, dominating Davis." And after referring to the proud and defiant spirit of
Mr. Davis, and his splendid bearing both in the last days of the Confederacy and after his
arrest and imprisonment, he says:
"The seductions of power or interest may
move lesser men, that matters not to him; the cause of the Confederacy is a fixed moral
and constitutional principle, unaffected by the triumph of physical force, and he asserts
it to-day as unequivocally as when he was seated in its executive chair at Richmond, in
apparently irreversible power, with its victorious legions at his command."
Mr. Davis, in' his speech on the occasion
referred to, alluded to the fact that the monument then being erected was to commemorate
the deeds of those "who gave their lives a free-will offering in defence of the
rights of their sires, won in the War of the Revolution, the State sovereignty, freedom
and independence which were left to us as an inheritance to their posterity forever."
Mr. Williams says of this definition:
"These masterful words, 'the rights of
their sires, won in the War of the Revolution, the State sovereignty, freedom and
independence, which were left to us as an inheritance to their posterity forever,' are the
whole case, and they are not only a statement but a complete justification of the
Confederate cause, to all who are acquainted with the origin and character of the American
Union."
He then proceeds to tell how the Constitution
was adopted and the government formed by the individual States, each acting for itself,
separately, and independently of the others, and then says:
"It appears, then, from this review of the
origin and character of the American Union, that when the Southern States, deeming the
Constitutional compact broken, and their own safety and happiness in imminent danger in
the Union, withdrew therefrom and organized their new Confederacy, they but asserted, in
the language of Mr. Davis, ' the rights of their sires, won in the War of the Revolution,
the State sovereignty, freedom and independence, which were left to us as an inheritance
to their posterity forever,' and it was in defence of this high and sacred cause that the
Confederate soldiers sacrificed their lives. There was no need of war. The action of the
Southern States was legal and Constitutional, and history will attest that it was
reluctantly taken in the last extremity."
He now goes on to show how Mr. Lincoln
precipitated the war, and describes the unequal struggle in which the South was engaged in
these words:
"After a glorious four years' struggle
against such odds as have been depicted, during which independence was often almost
secured, where successive levies of armies, amounting in all to nearly three millions of
men, had been hurled against her, the South, shut off from all the world, wasted, rent and
desolate, bruised and bleeding, was at last overpowered by main strength; out-fought,
never; for from first to last, she everywhere out-fought the foe. The Confederacy fell,
but she fell not until she had achieved immortal fame. Few great established nations in
all time have ever exhibited capacity and direction in government equal to hers, sustained
as she was by the iron will and fixed persistence of the extraordinary man who was her
chief; and few have ever won such a series of brilliant victories as that which
illuminates forever the annals of her splendid armies, while the fortitude and patience of
her people, and particularly of her noble women, under almost incredible trials and
sufferings, have never been surpassed in the history of the world."
And he then adds:
"Such exalted character and achievement
are not all in vain. Though the Confederacy fell, as an actual physical power, she lives
illustrated by them, eternally in her just cause--the cause of constitutional liberty."
Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, one of the present
Senators from Massachusetts, in his life of Webster, says:
"When the Constitution was adopted by the
votes of the States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the States in popular conventions, it
is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton on
the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system
as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, from which each and every State
had the right peaceably to withdraw--a right which was very likely to be exercised."
And I heard Mr. James C. Carter, of New York,
but a native of New England, and one of the greatest lawyers in this country, in his
address recently delivered at the University of Virginia, say:
"I may hazard the opinion that if the
question had been made, not in 1860, but in 1788, immediately after the adoption of the
Constitution, whether the Union, as formed by that instrument, could lawfully treat the
secession of a State as rebellion, and suppress it by force, few of those who participated
in framing that instrument would have answered in the affirmative."
These are clear and candid admissions on the
part of these distinguished Northerners that the Southern States had the right to secede
as they did, and were, therefore, right in regard to the real issue involved in the war
between the States.
There is but one other fact to which I desire
to call attention in this connection, and while it has often been referred to, it cannot
be too deeply impressed upon the minds of our people, and ought, it seems to me, to be
conclusive of this whole question--and that is, the refusal of the Northern people to test
the question of the right of secession by a trial of President Davis; and this,
notwithstanding the fact that since the cry, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" went up
at Jerusalem, nearly two thousand years ago, I believe there never was a time when a whole
people were more willing to punish one man than were the people of the North, who were in
favor of the war, to punish Mr. Davis for his alleged crimes as the leader of our cause
and people.
Mr. Davis was captured on or about the l0th of
May, 1865, near Washington, Ga., and straightway taken to and confined in a casemate at
Fortress Monroe. To show how eagerly these war people of the North demanded his life, they
attempted first to implicate him in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. It was even charged
in a proclamation issued by the President of the United States that the evidence of Mr.
Davis's connection with that atrocious crime "appears from evidence in the Bureau of
Military Justice." This evidence consisted for the most part of affidavits of
witnesses secured by that vile wretch, Judge Advocate General Holt. A committee of the
then Republican Congress says of these:
"Several of these witnesses, when brought
before the committee, retracted entirely the statements which they had made in their
affidavits, and declared that their testimony as originally given was false in every
particular."
Utterly failing in the attempt to connect Mr.
Davis with this crime, they then tried to involve him in the alleged cruelty to prisoners
at Andersonville, and a reprieve was offered to the commandant of the prison, Wirz, the
night before he was hung, if he would implicate Mr. Davis,--which offer the brave Captain
indignantly refused.
It was only after every attempt to connect Mr.
Davis with other crimes had failed, that the authorities at Washington dared to have him
indicted for the alleged crime of treason. Three several indictments for this offence were
then set on foot. The first was found in the District of Columbia, but no process seems
ever to have been issued on that. The second was found May 8th, 1866, at Norfolk, Va., in
the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, then presided
over by the infamous Judge Underwood; and as Underwood himself tells us, this indictment
was found after consultation with, and by the direction of Andrew Johnson, the
then President of the United States. Almost immediately on the finding of this indictment,
Mr. William B. Reed, a distinguished lawyer from Philadelphia, appeared for Mr. Davis, and
asked: "What is to be done with this indictment? Is it to be tried?"
* * "If it is to be tried, may it please
your honor, speaking for my colleagues and for myself and for my absent client, I say with
emphasis, and I say with earnestness, we come here prepared instantly to try that case,
and we shall ask no delay at your honor's hands further than is necessary to bring the
prisoner to face the Court, and enable him under the statute in such case made and
provided, to examine the bill of indictment against him."
At the instance of the Government, the case was
then continued until October, 1866. Although efforts were made by Mr. Davis's counsel to
have him admitted to bail, or removed to some more comfortable quarters, neither of these
could be accomplished until May 13th, 1867, when he was admitted to bail, after a cruel
imprisonment of two years, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith and other distinguished
Northerners then becoming his sureties.
On the 26th March, 1868, another indictment for
treason was found against him, which was continued from time to time until November, 1868.
During the pendency of these indictments, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States was adopted, the third section of which provides, that every person who,
having taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and thereafter
engaged in rebellion, should be disqualified from holding certain offices. Counsel for Mr.
Davis then raised the question that Mr. Davis having taken an oath to support the
Constitution of the United States as a member of Congress in 1845, the 14th Amendment
prescribed the punishment for afterwards engaging in rebellion, and this was pleaded in
bar of the pending prosecutions for treason. The reporter says this defence was
"inspired and suggested from the highest official source--not the President of the
United States." In other words, it was inspired and suggested by the Chief Justice
himself, as shown during the course of the argument, and for the sole purpose of evading
the trial of the issue of the right of a State to secede, which was necessarily involved
in the charge of alleged treason. On the question thus raised, the Court divided, the
Chief Justice being of the opinion that the defence set up was a bar to the indictment,
and Judge Underwood being of the contrary opinion. On this division, the question was
certified to the Supreme Court, where, in the language of the reporter, "the
certificate of disagreement rests among the records of the Court undisturbed by a single
motion for either a hearing or dismissal."
It is a part of the history of the times, to
use the language of a distinguished writer, that "the authorities at Washington and
Chief Justice Chase himself decided after full consideration and consultation with the
ablest lawyers in the country that the charge of treason could not be sustained, and so
the distinguished prisoner, who was anxious to go into trial and vindicate himself and his
cause before the world, was admitted to bail, and finally a nolle prosequi was
entered in the case."
I repeat that these proceedings are a virtual
confession on the part of the Northern people, that they were wrong, on the real question
at issue in the war, and therefore that the South was right.
At this time, when a few men at the North are
broad enough and bold enough to speak of some of the great leaders of the Southern cause
as great and good men, and when, just because they were leaders in that cause, these
opinions are seized upon, by those who still hate and defame us, as evidence of
disloyalty, if not acts of criminality on the part of those who venture to express them,
it seems to me, it is pertinent again to enquire of the Northern people--
(1) What did nearly one-half of your own voters
think of that cause, not thirty-two years after, but when the war was raging, and when all
the passions enkindled, and horrors wrought by it, were fresh in the minds of those
voters?
(2) What did enlightened, distinguished and
unprejudiced foreigners think of that cause; the way the war was waged, and the conduct of
the leaders, and the people on both sides at that time?
(3) What do some of your most intelligent and
distinguished writers think now of that cause, and its great civil leader?
(4) And why did the people of the North refuse
to test the question of which side was right, when they had instituted the case for that
purpose in their own courts?
It seems to me, that the facts here set forth
furnish such answers to these enquiries as ought to give pause to those of the North, who
still love to revile and defame the people of the South; many doubtless delighting in this
task now, who did not dare to come to the front when their professed views of duty called
them there; some of whom have been convinced of the justice of their cause, only
by the savor of the "flesh pots," and the allurements of the pension rolls,
which the results of the war and the achievements of others, have put within their grasp.
I would fain hope too, that these pregnant
facts will be pondered by our young people of the South, and if there be more than one
young Southerner who has said, as I heard that one did say not long ago, of his old
Confederate father, "the old man actually thinks he was right in the war,
"--that these facts will make any such, not only feel and know that the cause of the
South was right, and that the people of the South, almost as a unit, espoused and
loved that cause, but that as true men they love it still, and that their children ought
to feel alike proud of that cause and those who defended it with their lives, their blood
and their fortunes.
As some of the writers to whom I have referred
have said: 'There never was a people engaged in any struggle who were more united or
determined than were the people of the South, in behalf of the cause of the Confederacy.'
They almost to a man, and certainly to a woman, believed in that cause, and as I have
said, supported it with their lives, their blood and their fortunes. The sayings that
"might makes right," and that "success is a test of merit," have grown
into proverbs. But there never were more fallacious and misleading statements than these.
Appomattox was not a judicial forum, but a
battle-field, a simple test of physical power, where the Army of Northern Virginia,
"worn out with victory," and almost starving, surrendered its arms to
"overwhelming numbers and resources."
Therefore, I say that, so far as the way the
war ended is concerned, it proves, and can prove, nothing as to which side was right or
which was wrong. As we have seen, our enemies brought us into their own courts, thus
proclaiming to the world that they were ready and willing to test the question judicially,
and after advising with the highest authorities on their side, of their own motion,
abandoned their case, and fled from the precincts of their own chosen tribunals. We were
in their power, and could do nothing but accept this, their own virtual confession
that they, were wrong.
We need not fear, then, to submit our cause, or
the way we conducted the war in its defence, to the muse of history, and to await her
verdict with "calm confidence." Every day not only adds new lustre to the
heroism and devotion of our people, and the achievements of our armies in the field, but
rewards the researches of the unprejudiced historian with new and more convincing proofs
of the justice of our cause. What are thirty years in the life of a nation? It was nearly
two thousand years from the time when Arminius overcame the legions of Varus in the Black
Forest of Germany before a statue was reared to the memory of that victor, and he was
called the "Father of the Fatherland." It was less than two hundred years from
the time when Charles the II came to his own, when the principles for which Cromwell and
Hampden and Pym fought were recognized by all English speaking peoples, as the only ones
on which constitutional liberty ever can rest.

OUR DEFENDERS.

Having said so much about our cause,
I have only time to add a few words about the defenders of that cause.
And first, what shall I say, aye, what can I
say, of the women of the South? For they were among the first, and will be the last
defenders of that cause. I have no words in which to portray the admiration I feel, and
the homage I would love to pay to these devoted patriots. Writers have often tried to set
forth the story of their services and sacrifices, but have turned away baffled at the
contemplation of the task. Poets who have sung the achievements of heroes and warriors
have found verse all too feeble to translate their loving deeds into song, and minstrels
with harps well-nigh attuned to suit the Angelic Choir, have before that theme stood
hesitant and abashed, with nerveless fingers and silent strings. It has been proposed to
rear a monument to these noble women. I would love to contribute my mite to this
undertaking. But I know too well that the highest conception of artistic genius can never
measure up to the task of fitly portraying to the world the patriotism, heroism, devotion,
and sacrifices of the noble women of the Southland. They were and are, in the language of
Wordsworth:

"Perfect women, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort and command."

And what can I say of our leaders in
that cause? It is no small thing to be able to say of them that they were cultivated men,
without fear, and without reproach, and most of them the highest types of Christian
gentlemen; that they were men whose characters have borne the inspection and commanded the
respect of the world. Yes, the names of Davis, of Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons,
Beauregard, Ewell, Gordon, Early, Stuart, Hampton, Magruder, the Hills, Forrest, Cleburne,
Polk, and a thousand others I could mention, will grow brighter and brighter, as the years
roll on, because no stain of crime or vandalism is linked to those names; and because
those men have performed deeds which deserve to live in history. And what shall I say of
the men who followed these leaders? I will say this, without the slightest fear of
contradiction from any source: They were the most unselfish and devoted patriots that ever
marched to the tap of the drum, or stood on the bloody front of battle. The northern
historian, Swinton, speaks of them as the "incomparable infantry of the Army of
Northern Virginia." Colonel Dodge, a distinguished Federal officer, in his lecture on
Chancellorsville, before the "Lowell Institute" in Boston, says:
"The morale of the Confederate army could
not have been finer." * * * "Perhaps no infantry was ever, in its peculiar way,
more permeated with the instinct of pure fighting--ever felt the gaudiam certaminis more
than the Army of Northern Virginia."
Another gallant Federal colonel thus wrote of
them:
"I take a just pride as an American
citizen, a descendant on both sides of my parentage of English stock, who came to this
country about 1640, that the Southern army, composed almost entirely of Americans, were
able, under the ablest American chieftains, to defeat so often the overwhelming hosts of
the North, which were composed largely of foreigners to our soil; in fact, the majority
were mercenaries whom large bounties induced to enlist, while the stay-at-home patriots,
whose money bought them, body and boots, 'to go off and get killed, instead of their own
precious selves, said let the war go on.'"
Another Federal officer, writing after the
battle of Chancellorsville, says:
"Their artillery horses are poor, starved
frames of beasts, tied to their carriages and caissons with odds and ends of rope and
strips of rawhide; their supply and ammunition trains look like a congregation of all the
crippled California emigrant trains that ever escaped off the desert out of the clutches
of the rampaging Comanche Indians; the men are ill-dressed, ill-equipped and
ill-provided--a set of ragamuffins that a man would be ashamed to be seen among even when
he is a prisoner and can't help it; and yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to
pieces, beaten us so easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest
private soldiers, with no shirts to hang out the holes of their pantaloons, and cartridge
boxes tied around their waists with strands of rope."
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, in his
life of Benton, says:
"The world has never seen better soldiers
than those who followed Lee, and their leader will undoubtedly rank as, without any
exception, the very greatest of all great captains that the English speaking peoples have
brought forth; and this, although the last and chief of his antagonists, may himself claim
to stand as the full equal of Marlborough and Wellington."
And last, but not least, General Grant, to whom
Mr. Roosevelt referred above, speaks of these soldiers in his Memoirs as "the men who
had fought so bravely, so gallantly and so long for the cause which they believed
in."
I might add a thousand similar commendations
from those who fought us, but I cannot consume more of your time. If you have not done so,
I advise you by all means to procure and read The Recollections of a Private, by
a Northern soldier named Wilkinson, who was in the "Army of the Potomac" during
Grant's campaign from the Rapidan to Petersburg, and describes, in a most entertaining and
thrilling way, his experiences in that army. Without intending it at all, I believe, and
only telling in his own style, the way in which that army was organized, controlled, and
fought, his recitals are a panegyric on the Army of Northern Virginia and the glorious
leaders of that army.
The London Index has this to say of
our army and our people:
"Let it be remarked, that while other
nations have written their own histories, the brief history of this army, so full of
imperishable glory, has been written for them by their enemies, or at least by luke-warm
neutrals. Above all, has the Confederate nation distinguished itself from its adversaries
by modesty and truth, those noblest ornaments of human nature. A heart-felt,
unostentatious piety has been the source whence this army and people have drawn their
inspiration of duty, of honor and of consolation."
The Marquis of Lothian, from whom I have
already quoted, said:
"There are few stories that history or
tradition has handed down of valor and generosity which may not find something of a
counterpart in the annals of this war. Parents sending forth their children, one after
another, to die in the service of their country, without a murmur; delicate ladies leaving
home to wait upon their countrymen in hospitals; stripping their homes of everything that
could by any possibility promote the comfort of the troops, and working their fingers to
the bone to making clothing for them;" * * * "individuals raising regiments at
their own expense, and then serving in them as privates; school-boys and collegians
forming themselves into companies, and volunteering for service; common soldiers in
regiments giving up their pay in order to procure what was required for the sick and
wounded." * * * "In their daring, as well as in their self-sacrifice, things are
constantly done which in most countries would be made the theme for endless vaunting, but
with them are passed over as matter of course, and as almost too common to be specially
noticed."
Many such just and generous opinions might be
quoted from like sources; but again I must forbear. You will observe that, as I was
content to rest the justice of our cause on what our enemies and foreigners had to say of
it, so I have been content to rest the conduct of our people, and of our armies, upon the
testimony of the same witnesses, and on these alone. Let us leave the praise that ever
waits on noble deeds to be fashioned
"By some yet unmoulded tongue
Far on in summer's that we shall not
see."
During his first campaign in Italy Napoleon, in
writing of his soldiers, uses this language, which to my mind strikingly describes the
soldiers which composed our Southern armies. He says:
"They jest with danger and laugh at death;
and if anything can equal their intrepidity it is the gaiety with which, singing
alternately songs of love and patriotism, they accomplish the most severe forced marches.
When they arrive in their bivouac it is not to take their repose, as might be expected,
but to tell each his story of the battle of the day and produce his plan for that of
to-morrow; and many of them think with great correctness on military subjects. The other
day I was inspecting a demibrigade, and as it filed past me, a common Chasseur approached
my horse and said, 'General, you ought to do so and so.' 'Hold your peace, you rogue,' I
replied. He disappeared immediately, nor have I since been able to find him out. But the
manoeuvre which he recommended was the very same which I had privately resolved to carry
into execution."
And so I heard a distinguished Confederate
soldier say that a private in the Army of Northern Virginia, sitting on the side of the
mountain, outlined to him one evening the whole plan of the battle which was executed by
the commanding general on the following day.
One by one the soldiers of the Confederate
armies are passing into history. Whilst they go, not like those of the 10th Legion or the
Phalanx, the representatives of victorious warfare; yet they will go as the defenders of a
cause, which not only unprejudiced foreigners, but many of their former enemies, both
during and since the conflict, have pronounced just and right; as soldiers who did' their
duty and whose defence of that cause was such as to challenge the admiration of the world.
I thank God that there is not linked with the names of these men, the crimes of vandalism,
which so often brought forth the "widow's wail and the orphan's cry," and which
so marked the desolated track of those against whom they fought.
I thank God too, that no pension scandal has
ever linked its corrupt and corrupting touch to the name of the Confederate soldier; that
his support is not a menace to the public treasury, but that he has "hoed his own
row" and so lived as to command the respect of the world, and not by the help of the
tax-gatherer, and amid the sneers and contempt of a long suffering and grateful people.
Whilst the cause for which they fought is a
"lost cause" in the sense that they failed to establish a separate government
within certain geographical limits, yet it is only lost in that sense. The principles of
that cause yet live, and the deeds done by its defenders were not done in vain.
No my friends,
"Freedom's battle once begun
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won."
And now, my comrades, I must stop to say one
word for myself and for you, about the true and noble people of this battle-scarred, but
still beautiful old county of Culpeper, in which it is our privilege to meet, and to greet
one another on this interesting occasion. The record of this glorious people, won in the
war of the Revolution, was completely eclipsed by that made by them in the Confederate
war, and whilst "Cedar Mountain," "Brandy Station," and a hundred
other fields will ever attest the heroism and devotion of the Confederate soldier, there
is not a home or hamlet here that could not tell its story of the heroism, hospitality and
devotion of her Confederate men and women.
It is with a sense of peculiar pride and
pleasure then that we meet here to-night, not only with some of the survivors of those who
stood shoulder to shoulder on those bloody fields, but with those men and women, and the
descendants of those, who amidst the glare of their burning homes, and the threats and
tortures of a ruthless and relentless foe, remained unwavering and unconquerable, and who
are still true to principle and to right. Yes, my old comrades, we stand upon historic
ground to-night. The rocky defiles of these mountains have echoed and re-echoed the
thunders of artillery and the rattle of musketry amidst the ringing commands of Lee and
Jackson, and the flashing, knightly sabres of Ashby, Stuart and Hampton. Here banner and
plume have waved in the mountain breeze, whilst helmet and blade and bayonet were
glittering in the morning sun; and here too, ah, shame to tell, history will record many a
thrilling tale of outrage inflicted upon this defenceless people by the mercenary hordes
of the North, permitted and encouraged by the remorseless cruelty and unquenchable
ambition of some of their leaders. Just think of the almost infinite distance between the
places these leaders will occupy in history, and those already occupied by those immortal
and incomparable commanders, who sleep side by side at Lexington, and whose fame will grow
brighter and brighter as the years roll by. As the conquerers of Hannibal, of Cæsar, and
Napoleon have been almost forgotten amid the effulgence which will forever cling to the
names of these illustrious, though vanquished leaders, so in the ages to come, the fame of
Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons, Stuart, Ashby and others will outshine that of Grant,
Sheridan and Sherman "like the Sun 'mid Moon and Stars."
In the few hours that I could spare from the
cares and engagements of a busy life, I have thought it worth the while to gather up the
fragments of testimony which I have given you to-day as to the justice of our cause, and
the conduct of the defenders of that cause, not by way of presenting to you any arguments
of mine on these all-important themes; but to show you some of the acts and
confessions of our quondam enemies themselves, and of distinguished
foreigners. These constitute the highest and the best evidence which the law recognizes
for the establishment of the truth of any fact. And I want you, and the young people here
especially, to think on these things. Yes, my young friends, this cause, which is thus, as
I think, established to be right, is the one for which a third of a
century ago, your fathers fought, and your mothers worked and wept, and prayed. They thought
they were right then, they know they were right now.
And I want to say, in conclusion, that to think
and feel, as we think and feel about the Confederate cause, does not mean that we are
disloyal citizens of our now united and common country. But on the contrary, it is just in
proportion as we are true and loyal to the cause of the South, that we will be true and
faithful citizens of our country to-day; because the principles for which the Confederate
soldier fought, are the only ones, as I have already said, on which constitutional liberty
can ever rest in this, or any other country. Yes, my comrades and friends, be ye sure that

"The graves of our dead with
the grass overgrown
Will yet form the footstool of liberty's
throne,
And each single wreck in the war path of might
Shall yet be a rock in the temple of
right."

And I therefore repeat the
statement: The men who died for the Confederate cause, have not died in vain.

No,--
"They never fail who die
In a great cause. The block may soak their
gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls;
But still their spirits walk abroad. Though
years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others and conduct
The world at last to freedom."
Source: Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XXVI. Richmond, Va., January - December. 1898.